{"id":6012,"date":"2017-02-01T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T18:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=6012"},"modified":"2017-02-01T10:41:07","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T18:41:07","slug":"inside-englands-vida-guitar-quartet-stretching-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/inside-englands-vida-guitar-quartet-stretching-possibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside England&#8217;s Vida Guitar Quartet: Stretching Possibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>From the Winter 2016 issue of <em>Classical Guitar<\/em> | BY OLLIE MCGHIE<\/h6>\n<p>From a veranda outside Kings Place in London, you can look out over Regent\u2019s Canal. This stopping point, connecting the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal in the west to the Limehouse Basin in the east, is a tranquil spot where you can linger with a drink and listen to the music floating from the adjacent concert venue. It is here that I meet with the Vida Guitar Quartet, immediately following a rehearsal and prior to a special concert celebrating the relaunch of their latest album, <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2jodybl\" target=\"_blank\">The Leaves Be Green<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A first glance at the program for Vida\u2019s concert tonight indicates it is decidedly English. However, suspended between Vaughan Williams and Timothy Bowers is J. S. Bach\u2019s <em>Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major<\/em>, arranged by Vida\u2019s Mark Eden.\u00a0It comes to light during our interview that the Germanic content in an otherwise all-English program is to be part of a future musical outing they have in mind. Eden, Mark Ashford, Amanda Cook, and Chris Stell are scheming ahead.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VE_nnpsIEAw?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea is that the next album is Bach-based,\u201d says Stell, \u201cwith maybe some Villa-Lobos and in collaboration with some other instruments like the saxophone. We have a new commission by Howard Skempton [b.1947]. We\u2019re going to ask him to base it around Bach. The album will be loosely based on Bach, but using the Brandenburg as our centrerpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically the Bach in tonight\u2019s concert is transitioning this launch into our next project. It\u2019s a trailer for what\u2019s to come,\u201d adds Eden.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight\u2019s concert at Kings Place is part of IGF\u2019s Guitar Summit festival. It is a celebratory launch featuring the new distributor, Launch Music International (LMI), for Vida\u2019s album <em>The Leaves Be Green<\/em>, which originally came out in autumn 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Recorded by the inestimably talented engineer John Taylor in an English church in Hertfordshire, the album is quintessentially English from top to bottom. There are bold arrangements of Edward Elgar\u2019s <em>Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1<\/em> and Benjamin Britten\u2019s <em>Simple Symphony, Op. 4<\/em> interspersed with pastoral pieces such as Vaughan Williams\u2019 <em>English Folk Song Suite<\/em> and Peter Warlock\u2019s <em>Capriol Suite<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe like doing these big arrangements,\u201d explains Eden. \u201cBefore we compiled this album, there was certain British repertoire that we liked doing\u2014Malcolm Arnold\u2019s<em> English Dances<\/em> on our previous album, <em>Rhapsody<\/em>, and the Britten. It made sense to bring the Britten together with Mark\u2019s arrangement of Vaughan Williams and Elgar. Throwing in the Warlock helped make a really well-rounded program of English music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do these big works because we love the music, and you can do them with a quartet,\u201d Ashford adds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy favorite work on the album is the <em>English Folk Song Suite<\/em>,\u201d says Cook, the most recent member to join the quartet. She replaced Helen Sanderson about two years ago. \u201cThe <em>Suite<\/em> is full of very beautiful melodies and is exquisitely constructed. The way in which Vaughan\u00a0Williams weaves the folk tunes\u00a0throughout the work is so fresh and interesting. It translates onto the guitars perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The title of the album, <em>The Leaves Be Green<\/em>, comes from a piece called <em>Fantasy on an Old English Melody<\/em> (the second work on the CD) by Tim Bowers, who was Eden\u2019s and Stell\u2019s harmony professor at the Royal Academy of Music. The \u201cOld English Melody\u201d is a song by William Byrd written in the 16th century.<\/p>\n<p>Eden notes, \u201cWe\u2019re not doing these big works as some sort of circus trick\u2014to show this is something we can do. It\u2019s a challenge to see how we can translate the instrumentation for guitars\u2014that\u2019s half the process. The Gershwin [<em>Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>, on Vida\u2019s <em>Rhapsody<\/em> CD] changed drastically in our instrumentation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wacky arrangement on <em>The Leaves Be Green<\/em> is the Elgar,\u201d says Ashford. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit out there, and designed to stretch the possibilities on the four guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe use the range of colors in the tones of the guitar to try and emulate different instruments,\u201d adds Cook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoing our own arrangements gives us a much better understanding of the original material, the musical score, the instrumentation, how the piece is composed,\u201d Eden says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou get closer to the music and you get much more ownership. It\u2019s far better to do our own than buy one off the shelf and wonder why it\u2019s slightly bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each member of the quartet has his or her own part, of course, but the orchestration mixes so well that it\u2019s almost impossible to tell who plays what, especially on the album. Usually, Eden plays the top part and Stell, playing a 7-string guitar, is on the lower register. \u201cBut sometimes we swap that around to keep things fresh,\u201d Eden says. \u201cOur arrangements cross all the time. It\u2019s a unique way of arranging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The four members of the quartet all pursue musical lives beyond Vida. Eden and Stell, who perform as the Eden-Stell Guitar Duo (and are the founders of Vida), were fresh back from the celebratory 25th Iserlohn Festival in Germany. \u201cIt was insane,\u201d Stell comments, \u201clike three gigs a night\u2014manic and fantastic at the same time!\u201d Cook plays as a soloist and had recently finished a series of recitals in Scotland. Ashford is a soloist too, with recent concerts at Chichester and Rutland. With such busy lives juggling musical careers, you would think it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them all to collaborate, but they make it work.<\/p>\n<p>They all live across the south of England in Surrey, Leicestershire, and Hampshire. As a result, any rehearsal time they need outside their tour or concert schedule takes place in a shed belonging to Gerald Garcia\u2014guitarist, composer, and leader of the National Youth Guitar Ensemble (NYGE)\u2014which is strategically positioned in Oxfordshire.<\/p>\n<p>Vida is committed to outreach and educational work, too. This is usually in tandem with concerts they give, so before or after a concert they will play a small repertoire for local schools and discuss the performance, the music, and its history. Vida are artists-in-residents for Jackdaws Music Education Trust in Frome, in Somerset, England. \u201cWe do various projects for them as a quartet and as the Eden-Stell Guitar Duo,\u201d Stell says. \u201cThey also support our trips to the United States. We fly their baton when we\u2019re out there in America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The quartet also does a lot of work in the US. \u201cWe have a really good agent,\u201d Ashford says. \u201cWe did a showcase event for an organization called Live On Stage. We got 15 minutes to play to a whole load of presenters [concert promoters]. The idea is that you get as many concerts as possible from that. We got a three-week tour out of it. The American audience seemed to love the English repertoire!\u201d Vida is already booked in 2017 for concerts in the US including one in February at Cornell University in upstate New York, and for the popular Guitar Marathon at 92nd St. Y in New York City. In April 2017, they will also be playing at the 25th anniversary of the Long Island [NY] Guitar Festival.<\/p>\n<p>Does Cook enjoy life on the road with Vida? \u201cTouring with the guys is like going away with three big brothers, but without the annoying habits. It\u2019s great fun!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>The end of 2016 also marks the group\u2019s ten-year anniversary. It was in Iserlohn a decade ago that Eden and Stell first had the idea for Vida, inspired by seeing the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet in action. The name Vida, which means \u201clife\u201d in Spanish, was taken from the famous Spanish dance \u201cLa Vida Breve\u201d by Manuel de Falla (adapted from his opera of the same name). Vida will celebrate its anniversary milestone with the launch of their new CD, <em>Bachianas<\/em>, featuring the aforementioned <em>Brandenburg Concerto No. 3<\/em>, playing here on Regent\u2019s Canal, Kings Place, as part of IGF\u2019s festival in the autumn of 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the last decade we have all grown as players and have been able to work instinctively on arrangements that play to our individual strengths,\u201d Stell muses. \u201cWe have stretched the possibilities of our instrument both technically and artistically, bringing our passion for chamber music to life through a combined sense of purpose.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNext year will see some exciting new commissions for guitar quartet, more concerts home and abroad, as well as another CD.\u00a0The journey continues.\u201d\b<\/p>\n<h4>WHAT THEY PLAY<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Mark Eden<\/strong> plays a 2000 Christopher Dean guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Ashford:<\/strong> 2007 Christopher Dean with a spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amanda Cook:<\/strong> 2014 Bert Kwakkel Viscivorus, with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris Stell:<\/strong> 2012 Christopher Dean 7-string guitar with a spruce top and back and sides made from \u201cjaguar\u2019s ear,\u201d a rare type of Brazilian rosewood sometimes called \u201cocelot\u2019s ear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vida is a D\u2019Addario-sponsored group and uses that company\u2019s strings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Winter 2016 issue of Classical Guitar | BY OLLIE MCGHIE From a veranda outside Kings Place in London, you can look out over Regent\u2019s Canal. This stopping point, connecting the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal in the west to the Limehouse Basin in the east, is a tranquil spot where you can linger with a drink and listen to the music floating from the adjacent concert venue. It is here that I meet with the Vida [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Vida-Guitar-Quartet-Classical-Guitar-Magazine.jpg?fit=2292%2C1222&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}